Talk:Lycée Français Prins Henrik

Discussion on the school's location

The following discussion is copied from the talk page of Ramblersen:--Ipigott (talk) 10:05, 27 May 2016 (UTC)

Thank you for expanding the article on the French school of Copenhagen.

One note: Because Frederiksberg is a separate municipality surrounded by Copenhagen, it should be stated as "Frederiksberg, Denmark, surrounded by Copenhagen." It is the same way insular cities such as "Bellaire" are treated in Texas. Bellaire is almost completely surrounded by Houston, and yet it is stated as "Bellaire, Texas" because Bellaire is a separate municipality with its own fire department, police, etc. WhisperToMe (talk) 13:24, 26 May 2016 (UTC)

@User:WhisperToMe: I strongly disagree. I am well aware that Frederiksberg is an ondependent municipality but Copenhagen refers to the entire urban area. I can assure you that noone in Frederiksberg would say that they do not live in Copenhagen (as opposed to Copenhagen Municipality. See also Statistics Denmark which routinely uses the yrtm 'Byen København' ("City of Copenhagen") which both includes the municipalities of Copenhagen, Frederiksberg, Tårnby and Dragør. See also Copenhagen Zoo and Copenhagen Business School which are both located in Frederiksberg Municipality. It is without any practical importance to the French School that it happens to be located in a part of Copenhagen that happens to be an independent municipality. I think it will course way more confusion than it will be informative and that it will lead to an unbearable number of repetitions if each and every article about a building, institution or whatever in Frederiksberg should explain Frederiksberg's umusual combination of a very central location in the middle of Copenhagen and a status as an independent municipality. I don't think Bellaire is a fitting comparison. The situation is more comparable to City of London and City of Westminster )not that the situation is in any way identical) which are obviously both part of London in spite of their special status. Noone would say "in City of Westminster, surrounded by London".Ramblersen (talk) 16:41, 26 May 2016 (UTC)

In the example of London that's because "London" actually means Greater London the entity (not the London metropolitan area which extends into Essex, Surrey, etc. nor the small City of London at the core, which is inside Greater London)

I am aware that with Australian and New Zealand cities the use of "Sydney"/"Melbourne"/etc refers to the metropolitan areas and not to any one LGA/municipality.

However in the United States strictly speaking "Houston" is what's in the city limits. People living in Bellaire, Texas and West University Place, Texas are centrally located (like Fredericksberg) and usually they would say "I'm from Houston" to an outsider (and this article calls Bellaire and West U "glorified neighborhoods") - Despite that they are properly municipalities and things within them should not be stated as being in Houston.

I assumed that Copenhagen is defined the same way as an American city, that is, as a municipality rather than as a metropolitan area. Is there a reference which says that when most people say "Copenhagen" they refer to the metropolitan area in the Australian way? If so, then I would be okay changing things. If not, then I would ask that both Bellaire, Texas (and similar exclaves within American cities) and Fredericksberg be treated in the same way.

WhisperToMe (talk) 16:53, 26 May 2016 (UTC)

Ahh I found a far more famous American example of "municipality surrounded by much bigger one" that is culturally a part of the city around it: Beverly Hills, California! (there's also West Hollywood, California and Santa Monica, California) WhisperToMe (talk) 17:46, 26 May 2016 (UTC)

Well I have already mentioned that Statistics Denmark includes Frederiksberg under "Byen København" in their official statistics. If that is not a good enough source for you, I doubt that anything will be. Having lived in Frederiksberg, having family there and living a few hundred metres away, I really don't get why this discussion ends up being about Houston and other American cities. If you read the article about Copenhagen, you will notice that it handles the issue with Copenhagen's confusing, administrative structurein the same pragmatic way that I proposes by covering a larger area than just Copenhagen Municipality where it is relevant and I therefore really don't get why it is important to you that an article about a French school in Copenhagen (the principle one) mentions something which is of no practical importance to it and which would potentiall have to be repeated in some 100 articles. As I see it, it is plenty that the article about Frederiksberg mentions that it is an independent municipality completely surrounded by Copenhagen Municipality and that municipally operated public schools, cultural venues etc explicitly mentions Frederiksberg Municipality. Perhaps User:Ipigott who is a native English-speaker but is very familiar with Denmark and has upgrated a number of articles about Danish cities including the one about Copenhagen to GA status has an opinion about this matter?Ramblersen (talk) 18:22, 26 May 2016 (UTC)

Because it is geographically and culturally the same situation: The bigger cities annexed around the smaller cities leaving them islands ("By 1948 West University Place was completely surrounded by Houston."). I suppose the only difference is that Frederiksberg is larger population-wise than those American "island cities" (Fredericksberg has 104,481 while the American cities are in the tens of thousands or just the thousands).

"Well I have already mentioned that Statistics Denmark includes Frederiksberg under "Byen København" in their official statistics. " - Do they do this for all statistics related to Copenhagen? May I see the webpages and/or documents such as maps where this is explained? A look at the Danish stats index for "BY1: Population 1. January by urban areas, age and sex" says that it lists "Kobenhavn Municipality" and "Kobenhavn (part of Greater Copenhagen region)" - What I'm looking for is the agency providing a map or text definition of "Kobenhavn (part of Greater Copenhagen region)" defining it as including "Kobenhavn Municipality" and "Frederiksberg Municipality"

When I do "show table" for these options for the year 2016:

• "101-00101 Københavns Municipality 591 481"
• "101-01100 København (part of Greater Copenhagen Region) 591 481" (the population figures are identical)
• "147-00147 Frederiksberg Municipality 104 481"
• "147-01100 Frederiksberg (part of Greater Copenhagen Region) 104 481" (the population figures are identical)

If they were counting "København" as being distinct from "Københavns Municipality" by including Frederiksberg then wouldn't its population count be higher than "København Municipality"? The "Greater Copenhagen Region" includes multiple cities in the Copenhagen area, not only Copenhagen and Frederiksberg. I don't see another entry named "Byen København" or such that would seem to be Copenhagen and Frederiksberg combined. Also when I checked ARE207: Area by region Copenhagen (86.40 square km) and Frederiksberg (8.71 square km) are listed separately.

WhisperToMe (talk) 00:22, 27 May 2016 (UTC)

@Ramblersen and WhisperToMe: I fully sympathize with you, WhisperToMe, in your efforts to establish the correct location of the French school, given the separate administrative status of Frederiksberg. I would nevertheless suggest that there is a danger in being "more Catholic than the Pope" in this context as Copenhageners and Danes in general refer to it as the French school in Copenhagen. (Google gives over a thousand hits for "den franske skole i københavn" but only nine for "den franske skole i frederiksberg".) I have never heard anyone call it the French school of Frederiksberg. The school is well known throughout Denmark as it was accidentally bombed by the RAF during the Second World War. The French call it simply "Lycée français de Copenhague". Rather than pursuing the discussion of how Frederiksberg and Copenhagen are covered in the statistics, I suggest a more pragmatic solution. I have rewritten the introduction to the article as "Lycée Français Prins Henrik (Danish: Prins Henriks Skole) is a French international school in central Copenhagen, Denmark. Located in Frederiksberg Allé in the municipality of Frederiksberg, it serves levels primaire (primary school) through lycée (senior high school)." I also agree to maintaining "Frederiksberg" as the official location in the box. I will copy this discussion to the article's talk page as a basis for any further comment on the subject. And while I'm here, I would also like to thank WhisperToMe for all the excellent work he has been doing to improve the presentation of articles about schools.--Ipigott (talk) 07:26, 27 May 2016 (UTC)

It is not surprising that "den franske skole i frederiksberg" get's few results as it is grammatically incorrect. The correct preposition for Frederiksberg is "på" (on) not "i" (in). "den franske skole på frederiksberg" the correct sentence renders appr. 4.770 results for me. I think it's correct to refer to the school as either Frederiksberg or Copenhagen (in the meaning of the town as a whole not merely the municipality). TorbenTT (talk) 13:02, 27 May 2016 (UTC)

And the preposition "på" is also used in connection with other neighbourhoods such as "på Vesterbro, på Østerbro, på Nørrebro" whereas the preposition "i" is used for cities/town (i Hillerød, i Roskilde"). Just an observation.:) It is obviously not incorrect to say that the school is located in Frederiksberg but I don believe it is incorrect to claim that it is not located in Copenahgen. The question here is what gives the most readable and informative article for the average reader. The school serves the Copenhagen area and it is therefore natural that the focus is on Copenhagen.Ramblersen (talk) 20:37, 28 May 2016 (UTC)